


What Happens If (John's Jumpers Edition)

by torchwood221b



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-07 00:38:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3154304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torchwood221b/pseuds/torchwood221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens if John wakes up one morning and finds he has no jumpers to wear?</p><p>The following chapters contain some of John's possible responses. Please enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scenario 1: Sheet!John?

**Author's Note:**

> This series of shorts came about because of one of kriskenshin's morning drabbles. According to her John will literally become frozen in place for days should the flat ever completely run out of tea. Which prompted me to ask the question;
> 
> What happens if John wakes up one morning and finds he has no jumpers left to wear?

Sherlock could hear John rummaging around in their bedroom for something but didn’t see any need to check on his lover just yet. If John couldn’t find what he was looking for he’d ask. After all the man was a grown up.

A few minutes later the rummaging noises died down and John emerged from their bedroom wearing a large knitted blanket fashioned similarly to the bed sheet Sherlock had worn to Buckingham palace.

“What are you wearing?” Sherlock asked raising an eyebrow in confusion.

“I’m out of jumpers,” John said desolately.

“Do you not have other clothes?” Sherlock posed, they had been working cases back to back for nearly a month with not time for things like laundry but it wasn’t like John only owned jumpers.

“I don’t want to wear other clothes,” John replied like a child who didn’t want to eat his vegetables and sat down in his chair crossing his arms before glaring at Sherlock.

Sherlock knew that look, that was John’s “my current predicament is 100% your fault so I suggest you fix the problem, now” look.

The consulting detective finished his tea, put on his coat and headed out of the flat. He returned an hour later with a brand new cashmere jumper that brought out John’s eyes.

Once John was properly dressed he started the laundry. The first load he put in was all his dirty jumpers but it wasn’t until after order was restored that he thanked Sherlock for his gift.


	2. Scenario 2: John Watson Master of Knitting Needles

Sherlock had heard John get up hours ago but for some reason he hadn’t come out of the bedroom.

“John, is everything alright?” Sherlock questioned having gotten up to check on him.

He found John sitting on their bed in his pants, extra long knitting needles in hand determinedly trying to stitch something. The yarn ball had clearly rolled off the bed some time ago and was now almost completely unraveled on the floor.

Sherlock studied the thing John was making with the yarn, sighed and said “you dropped a stitch in the fifth row.” John was already thirty rows into his project but slid the yarn off the knitting needles and started pulling his project apart saying damn it under his breath.

Sherlock happened to glance at the open closet and saw that John was out of jumpers, weeks of back to back cases had resulted in them being decidedly low on clothing and John always opted for his jumpers on his days off.

While John continued to pull his obvious attempt at a jumper apart Sherlock gathered John’s sweaters and started doing the laundry, which really entailed taking the load to Mrs. Hudson, explaining the situation and having her show him how to work the washer and dryer.

By the time the load of jumpers was washed and dried John had gotten about sixty rows into knitting himself a new jumper. Sherlock handed John an outfit to put on, complete with freshly laundered jumper and resisted the urge to tell John he’d somehow added a stitch in row forty one.

He’d fix it for him later.


	3. Scenario 3: Complete Mental Breakdown

"What’s wrong?" Mycroft answered his brother’s call. Sherlock never called him, he preferred to text and so a phone call from his brother obviously meant he needed something, badly.

"John’s out of jumpers, he’s never run out of jumpers before and I don’t know what to do. He’s sitting in the corner of our room rocking back and forth and staring at the place in our closet where his jumpers should be. He hasn’t blinked in five minutes Mycroft," Sherlock actually sounded worried.

"Perhaps you two should try doing some laundry. I realize Detective Inspector Lestrade and I have kept you quite busy for the past few weeks but you aren’t on a case now so I’m certain you can find time to wash clothes," Mycroft said calmly.

"John is in charge of the laundry and I can’t leave him like this. I’d ask Mrs. Hudson to help me but she isn’t home. I’ve shouted for her and she hasn’t come up, she always comes up," Sherlock replied with more than a hint of desperation in his voice.

"I’ll send Anthea," Mycroft told him reluctantly. Sherlock really needed to learn to fend for himself more often but he didn’t expect John to have a complete mental breakdown because he didn’t have any jumpers to wear.

Anthea arrived at 221b bearing gifts; ten new jumpers in John’s size, tags already cut off and folded the same way John would have folded them to be put away. Sherlock exchanged his bags of dirty laundry for her bags of new jumpers and ran back upstairs to place them in the closet.

He had barely set down the second pile of jumpers when John ran across the room, grabbed one off the stack and pulled it over his head.

"This isn’t one of my jumpers," John said as he pulled on a pair of trousers, "none of these are."

"They are now," Sherlock replied relieved to see John was back to normal, "but don’t expect a big birthday gift from Mycroft this year."


	4. Scenario 4: Crime Spree

It’s been three weeks since John has had a chance to do laundry and he’s officially out of jumpers. Rather than pull a dirty one out of the hamper he calmly selects a different outfit; button down shirt, corduroy suit jacket, a tie and khakis. Once he’s dressed he stops to retrieve his gun from the nightstand and leaves their room. He says good morning to Sherlock with a kiss on the cheek and announces he needs to run some errands.

The first shop he goes into looks promising. He draws the gun and fires one bullet into the ceiling before pointing it at the cashier and telling everyone else to get out.

"Give me all your men's medium jumpers!" He shouts at her and she grabs a bag and runs frantically around the store looking for his requested items.

After two minutes of watching this clearly incompetent girl run around like a chicken with her head cut off John puts the gun away and calmly walks out of the store.

At the next shop he pulls the same stunt and this time a frightened salesman fails to bring him his requested jumpers in a timely fashion. The gun is tucked into his waistband and he heads to the next store.

There are two people working the sales counter in the third shop. “Two heads are better than one,” he thinks to himself and instructs them to bring him every men's size medium jumper the store has to offer.

By this time Scotland Yard has been alerted to the crazy man with a gun and have set up a perimeter outside. First on the scene is DI Greg Lestrade who happened to hear the radio call and be in the area. Eyewitness accounts tell him that the suspect has been asking for men's jumpers, size medium. When Lestrade gets a look at the CCTV footage he recognizes and immediately calls Sherlock.

"Lestrade, I really can’t take another case right now I need to do some laundry," Sherlock says answering his phone.

"Is John out of clean jumpers?" Greg asks him.

"What?" Sherlock replies confused as to why Greg would care whether or not John had any jumpers left.

"Is. John. Out. Of. Clean. Jumpers?" the DI asks again.

"I don’t see how that’s relevant" Sherlock tells him.

"Just answer the question!" Greg barks at him.

"Yes! He’s out of jumpers. Why is it so important?" Sherlock shouts back.

"Maybe because he’s trying to commit armed robbery in order to get himself some jumpers to wear," Lestrade replies frustrated.

"That’s ridiculous. It’s not even jumper season," Sherlock snapped back before hanging up the phone.

A few hours and one long hostage negotiation later Sherlock gets a call from John asking if he’ll come bail him out of jail. After a full afternoon’s worth of legwork Mycroft manages to make the whole thing disappear but John is going to owe him one.


End file.
